Gig week kicked off in outstanding form last night. Opening act Crooked Fingers (performing solo tonight as a Dylan-esque troubadour playing songs about screwed-up relationships -- romantic and platonic) sounded great, most notably with his second song which sounded so comfortable and second nature to me, and then I realized it was because the chord pattern was identical to Stereolab's "Tempter" (one of my fave songs by them), which put me more at ease with my deja vu.

The Delgados sounded far better than their last show here (April 2003), and I think it was due to the lack of a string section this time (which I wouldn't have thought possible, considering how much I missed the strings on their newest, "Universal Audio"). Simply put, they rocked harder and sounded tighter in doing so, and having another album of pristine pop to draw from obviously didn't hurt either.